'Human error' hits Google search

January 31

BBC - Google's search service has been hit by technical problems, with users unable to access search results. For a period on Saturday, all search results were flagged as potentially harmful, with users warned that the site "may harm your computer".

"What happened? Very simply, human error," wrote Marissa Mayer, vice president, search products and user experience, on the Official Google Blog.

The internet search engine works with stopbadware.org to ascertain which sites install malicious software on people's computers and merit a warning. When Google updated the list on Saturday, it mistakenly flagged all sites as potentially dangerous.

"We will carefully investigate this incident and put more robust file checks in place to prevent it from happening again," Ms Mayer wrote.


nymole January 31, 2009 - 10:15am
( categories: Miscellany | AgonistWire )

Computers don't make mistakes. They just repeat yours, endlessly.

Synoia January 31, 2009 - 2:43pm

- kind of an out-of-body experience when every search found nothing:-)

NOw if they would only use spellcheck on some of their "automatically generated" headlines....


I feel the American worker has been sacrificed to the capitalist idols in the ancient Mayan fashion. - Sue Lamb, NYT reader

nymole January 31, 2009 - 3:58pm

trying to look for Zimbabawe links this morning, every search came up with a warning. If you clicked on the link it would take you to a warning page that wouldn't let you continue on to the link. I ended up having to find the link to the sites off the google news page and then search within the site..very aggravating and time consuming.


"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined." -Henry David Thoreau

Tina January 31, 2009 - 6:26pm

http://www.rhodesia.com

Saddest web site I used to look at. Don't go there now. Too heartbreaking.

And I posted "Support Rhodesia" stickers in the '60s, Lived there and ZA in the '70s and then left.

Synoia February 1, 2009 - 12:47pm

Robert in a free open election.

mcgrande February 2, 2009 - 4:44pm

CSM - You might have slept through it, but Google had a massive malware mix up Saturday morning, leading to questions about whether one company has inordinate influence over web life.

n an editorial called “Google’s flub: Do we have a Web monoculture too?” ZDNet editor in chief Larry Dignan writes that: “to many folks Google is the Window to the Internet. If folks can’t Google people are simply lost. That fact alone probably qualifies Google as a Web monoculture although it may be a touch premature to make a definitive call. However, Google touches everything and frankly that’s a bit worrisome.”

motr at the link


I feel the American worker has been sacrificed to the capitalist idols in the ancient Mayan fashion. - Sue Lamb, NYT reader

nymole February 2, 2009 - 11:44pm

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